Some of Us Have Been Waiting 8 Years for the Dunghammer to Fall on Scott Walker

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

20 October 18

Even close associates are abandoning the Wisconsin governor now, some citing "schemes or coverup."

couple of weeks back, a poll from my alma mater's law school had Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, leading in his race for re-election by nine points over Democratic candidate Tony Evers. This came as something of a surprise because all the other polls had shown the race virtually deadlocked, or with a slight advantage to Evers.

The Marquette Law School poll shook things up for a few days—so much so that former Walker aides and Cabinet members seem to have been inspired to quit six-figure jobs with his administration, and to mark him as the schlub we always knew he was on the way out the door. The most recent is a guy named Paul Jadin, who was the first CEO of something called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, the scandal-sodden mechanism by which Walker turned his back on over a century of progressive business regulation and through which he arranged the ongoing yard sale of the state's commons. From The Wisconsin State Journal:

Paul Jadin, the first CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., informed the board of the Madison Region Economic Partnership on Wednesday that he was resigning from his $208,000-a-year job. He said the resignation was necessary to avoid entangling the agency with his political activity.

On Thursday, Jadin released to the Wisconsin State Journal an open letter, co-signed by former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall and former Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten, slamming Walker and endorsing Walker's Democratic opponent State Superintendent Tony Evers. Both Wall and Bildsten have recorded videos for Evers' campaign.

Another ex-cabinet official, former Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb, has also come out against Walker in recent months, saying the governor hasn't been telling the truth about road funding. Gottlieb didn't sign the letter and hasn't endorsed Evers.

People like Jadin and these other folks don't run this fast, this far, or this loudly away from a sitting governor unless they're convinced he's a loser, and they certainly don't endorse his Democratic opponent unless they're pretty damn sure.

"Governor Walker has consistently eschewed sound management practices in favor of schemes or coverup and has routinely put his future ahead of the state." the letter states. "The result is micromanagement, manipulation and mischief. We have all been witness to more than our share of this."

"Schemes or cover-up"?

Is there more? Of course, there's more. Some of us have been waiting eight years for the dunghammer to fall.

In 2015 Jadin told the State Journal that he rebuffed then-Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch's push for a $4.5 million loan to a top Walker donor. WEDC gave the donor's company $500,000, but the loan was never repaid. A subsequent agency review could not locate underwriting documentation for that and more than two dozen other awards. Bildsten led the Department of Financial Institutions for Walker's first term and left in February 2015. He has previously called out Walker's office for discouraging the creation of public records, an issue the letter also raises.

"The Governor and his team do not like to leave a paper trail or state record of their actions relating to the conduct of state business," Bildsten, Wall and Jadin wrote. "They simply did everything in their power to avoid transparency in his decision-making process so they could not be held to account."

According to an NBC/WSJ poll taken last week, Evers is back up by 10 points.

Gerrymander that, pal.